--The Sultan Mustapha and Lewis
XIV. are thus referred to.
{14a} Clippers.--The context seems to demand this meaning, that is,
"those who debase coin of the realm," rather than "beggars" from the
Welsh "clipan."
{20a} Backgammon and dice.--These games, together with chess, were
greatly in vogue in mediaeval Wales, and are frequently alluded to in the
Mabinogion and other early works. The four minor games or feats
(gogampau) among the Welsh were playing the harp, chess, backgammon, and
dice. The word "ffristial a disiau" are here rendered by the one word
"dice"--ffristial meaning either the dice-box, or the game itself, and
disiau, the dice.
{21a} This wailing is for pay.--Cp.
Ut qui conducti plorant in funere dicunt
et faciunt prope plora dolentibus ex animo.
--Horace: Ars Poetica, 430-1.
{23a} The butt of everybody.--Whenever a number of bards, in the course
of their peregrinations from one patron's hall to another, met of a
night, their invariable custom was to appoint one of the company to be
the butt of their wit, and he was expected to give ready answer in verse
and parry the attacks of his brethren.
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